Over time, a lot of people have inquired as to why Himalaya Studios didn't offer any other payment options besides PayPal. Well, we're happy to announce that the new online store now accepts payment via Credit Card, PayPal, Check, Bank Wire Transfer, Money Order, Phone, or Fax. So, if you've wanted to grab a tangible copy of Al Emmo (or a QFG2 Poster!), but have been unable to on account of our store only accepting PayPal in the past, you'll be glad to know that limitation no longer exists.

Post subject: Re: Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine has been released!

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 7:16 pm

Trusty Riding Saurus

Joined: Mon Sep 24, 2007 10:02 pmPosts: 1100

No, I don't get the error message on Google Chrome if I click that link. After reading more details on the error, I know that it was given because Google Chrome knew I acceded to *.plimus.com, but couldn't tell me it was the same site than www.himalayastudios.plimus.com, so I should test too if the problem appears when clicking the new link from the himalaya site (just to make sure, but I think it won't happen).

Chrome is overzealous some times, but if one customer happened to enter your online store from that browser, it would think twice before buying something.

Post subject: Re: Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine has been released!

Posted: Fri Mar 06, 2009 7:31 pm

The Prince of Shapeir

Joined: Tue May 08, 2001 4:12 amPosts: 8872Location: Phobos

Okay, good to know. Thanks.

Yeah, seems like the sub-domain throws it off. If worse comes to worse, the links are all easy changeable and backwards compatible by removing the himalayastudios part from the url. Might be also an idea to report it to the relevant parties.

Upgrading to version 3.0 is free for customers who purchased the game directly from Himalaya Studios. If you purchased the Digital Download version, simply uninstall your old version, then re-install version 3.0. The same serial key number you were allocated will work.

If you purchased the CD version of Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine from Himalaya Studios and would like to upgrade to version 3.0, please send us an email at contact@himalayastudios.com, quoting your order reference number and/or shipping address where the game was sent to, and we'll assign you a new serial key that works with the Digital Download version of the game.

Important: Please note that savegames from previous versions of the game are not compatible with v3.0!

The main addition to 3.0 is the implementation of higher resolution modes which allows for a more detailed Al Emmo character sprite. A full list of additions, features, improvements, and bug fixes is below:

CHANGES TO VERSION 3.0----------------------WARNING: GAME SPOILERS AHEAD

- Added: Support for higher resolution graphics- Added: Direct3D driver mode- Added: a more highly-detailed Al Emmo sprite in high resolution modes- Added: proper Windows Vista & Windows 7 support and functionality- Added: an Exit button to the title screen- Added: a checkbox to the installer asking whether the user wants to create a game desktop icon or not- Added: Better-looking top corner page-turn menus and clearer bottom-left corner map menu- Added: the current Act number to the top GUI bar- Added: the ability to press CTRL+C to quickly clear any characters in GUI text boxes- Added: visual "Continue" and "Replay" buttons to the GUIs that appear after the Comic Cutscenes- Added: the ability to dismount the saloon barstool by clicking the Walk icon- Added: an advance hint in the mines about the imminent flooding river booby-trap- Added: some replacement Andretto speech lines and lip-syncing in the mines- Fixed: potential permission conflicts under Windows Vista and Windows 7 accounts without Admin privileges- Fixed: save-game files potentially getting misnumbered and overwriting existing save-games- Fixed: Centered All GUIs- Fixed: Dragging the Music Volume slider to the very bottom will now mute game music completely- Fixed: several instances where the wrong mouse cursor was being made active after closing GUIs- Fixed: being able to pour the flask of water from the upper window of the Hospitality House- Fixed: Made Al Emmo stop walking when the Rita Flyer and Business ID Card items are clicked on him- Fixed: bugs where Al could pass into non-walkable areas of the Saloon, Indian Plateau, & Bull Pen screens- Fixed: a bug where clicking through narrator speech when viewing the saloon Drink Menu closed the menu- Fixed: a bug where exiting a screen could cause Al Emmo glide without using his walking animations- Fixed: Disabled the CTRL+Q hotkey for the Quit GUI when a map GUI or similar close-up GUI is on-screen- Fixed: the Exit Arrow icons so that they revert to the Wait icon as soon as Al Emmo begins his exit- Fixed: Made Rita's gate easier to click when opening/closing it. Also fixed the opened gate's z-order- Fixed: some omitted Rita speech lines when talking to her about the location of the Miner's Cabin- Fixed: Viewing the Rita Flyer and Andretto ID card close-ups will now stop Al from moving- Fixed: Prevented the player from viewing the Rita Flyer during timed-events- Fixed: a bug where turning Special Effects off would make sunlight beams appear inside buildings/houses- Fixed: being able to walk through the 2 Plateau Indians when standing behind the pair and talking to them- Fixed: a bug where the Trial Door's text parser sometimes permitted incorrect answers- Fixed: a bug where Al could clip through the Aztec Altar- Fixed: Prevented the player from being able to read the journals while in the mine (which caused issues)- Fixed: Implemented some hotspot adjustments, making their shapes and sizes fit the scenery more accurately- Fixed: various walk-behind masking and walkable area glitches- Fixed: some incorrect mouse icons on various GUIs- Fixed: several minor spelling/grammar errors- Fixed: other small glitches and bugs- Changed: The game no longer uses a music.vox file. Both sound and music resources are now stored in audio.vox- Changed: Rita's house now shows on the map after first seeing her in Act 1 (previously it showed in Act 2)- Changed: The game now natively plays Ogg Theora video files, preventing potential video stream freezes- Changed: Save-game and character export files are now stored in the user's My Documents/My Saved Games folder- Changed: the game's installer to use Inno Setup for better compression and performance

Unfortunately, we don't have any CD versions left in stock. Or rather, we do, but we're unable to ship them anymore. Additionally, the CD version is v1.0 which is pretty dated and doesn't support the new high-resolution mode and new features/bug fixes.

The newest build is v3.0, but it's direct-download only. There's an option to also get it shipped on CD on the purchase page (which incurs an additional fee) but this is just a plain CD supplied by the shipping house and not a professionally printed DVD with the custom printing and Eriq's DVD design case.

There might be some retailers or online CD-Rom catalogues that still have copies of the old CD version though. I know one guy who ordered a bunch of Al Emmo CD copies in Germany who still has some in his stock. This site used to sell CD versions as well, but I don't know if they have any left: www.interactcd.com

As for the rating, I would say it's probably PG or PG13 (whatever that rating is in the US). The content is probably about the same level as one of the raunchier episodes of The Simpsons.

I just bought the game and I have to say so far it's pretty funny. I haven't had a chance to play through it much just yet, but I'm very glad to support you guys in a small way after all those free games you've released.

If so, this is a known issue, where you need to go to the directory where the game was installed, right-click on Al_Emmo.exe and select "Run as Administrator".

After you do that, run the game and re-enter the license key, it should work without ever prompting you to enter the license key again.

Quote:

It may be important to note that I haven't managed to get the game to run yet (graphic mode woes) - will the reminder stop appearing after a successful launch?

No, that shouldn't make a difference.

Some computers use older video card hardware that doesn't support Direct3D. This is the video driver that Al Emmo uses by default.

What's the exact error message you're receiving? If it says something about a pixel shader not being supported, then you should be able to get the game running by loading the game's setup program and changing the game to use the DirectDraw 5 video driver instead.

On the other hand, if the error message mentions an unsupported resolution, you should be able to address this by either adding the unsupported resolution (mentioned in the error message) as a custom resolution in your video card's software/control panel (some new video cards have this feature). Or run the game's setup program and alter some of the resolution/screen settings.

To run the setup program go to your start menu by clicking the Windows "Start" button at the bottom left corner of your screen. Then go to "Programs". Look for the "Himalaya Studios>Al Emmo and the Lost Ducthman's Mine" group. In there, you should see an option called "Settings Menu". Click on this and the game's settings program will appear. This will allow you to change several game options in order to get the game to run. Follow these steps (it's best to perform the first step and then try to run the game to see if it works. If not, try the next step, and so on):

1) If the error message mentions a pixel shader: Where is says "Graphics Driver", change it from Direct3D 9 to DirectDraw 5.

The build in question is the one currently available at Himalaya site, not the one from e-mail I got from Plimus (that download appears to be dead)

They're the same build. The e-commerce provider (Plimus) simply deactivates the download link if it hasn't been downloaded within a certain amount of time after the purchase. It's a common complaint. But the game/trial can always downloaded directly from the Himalaya Studios website.

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